Stats Simulation Company Gaining Traction

When it became clear yesterday that Brett Favre would not be coming out of retirement to join the Minnesota Vikings, the staff at Accuscore had already crunched the numbers.

With Favre, the Vikings would have won 10 games, would have been the favorite to win the NFC North (42 percent chance) and would have had a 65 percent chance to make the playoffs.

Without Favre, Accuscore projected that the Vikings would only win nine games, fall into third place, in the division, only having a 29 percent chance of winning it, with a 51 percent chance of making the playoffs.

Over the last five years, Accuscore has built a nice business that is driven off the media and fans craving more statistics - to make them better analysts, better at the watercooler or even a better fantasy player or bettor.

Their ability to simulate game probabilities and individual stats of players has led to alliances with Yahoo, ESPN and the Wall Street Journal. And this year, the company branched out into offering its product to local news stations, which has developed into presence in more than 20 markets.

The company, which is based in Los Angeles and has only six employees, is able to charge for their content because it’s unique and because it could lead to fans making more money.

Accuscore recently went to the pay model on its Web site, charging $175 for six months of picks, a proposition company execs say comes in more than 10 times cheaper than other leading tout services.

The company also sells real-time projection data to fantasy players. For example, when New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady went down last year, the site had new projections on Matt Cassell, Wes Welker and Randy Moss.

Fantasy owners might want to know that, with a weaker throwing option without Favre, Accuscore says that Vikings running back Adrian Peterson will lose 184 yards and have two fewer rushing TD’s on the season.

Perhaps a new revenue model down the road could include selling its data to teams looking to potentially simulate combinations of players before considering trading for them.

Accuscore spokesman Zach Rosenfield said that the company has had meetings and conversations with several NBA and NFL teams and even shared some of their data.

As for who Accuscore says is the biggest beneficiary from Favre not playing? The Packers of course. They will now win the NFC North.